Law Commons^™

A Discourse On The Aba's Criminal Justice Standards: Prosecution And Defense Functions: The Physical Evidence Dilemma: Does Aba Standard 4-4.6 Offer Appropriate Guidance?, Rodney J. Uphoff

Faculty Publications

Since 1966, when criminal defense lawyer Richard Ryder was disciplined for retaining physical evidence that connected his client to a bank robbery, lawyers and courts have struggled with the ethical dilemma of how defense lawyers should deal with physical evidence that potentially incriminates one of their clients. When a lawyer takes possession of an evidentiary item, must she always turn it over to the authorities, as required by most courts that have addressed this dilemma? Or, can defense counsel return the evidence to the source from whom counsel received it as recommended by Standard 4-4.6 of the ABA Criminal Justice …

Improving The Reliability Of Criminal Trials Through Legal Rules That Encourage Defendants To Testify, Jeffrey Bellin

Faculty Publications

Reflecting a traditional bias against defendants' trial testimony, the modern American criminal justice system, which now recognizes a constitutional right to testify at trial, unabashedly encourages defendants to waive that right and remain silent. As a result, a large percentage of criminal defendants decline to testify, forcing juries to decide the question of the defendant's guilt without ever hearing from the person most knowledgeable on the subject.

This Article contends that the inflated percentage of silent defendants in the American criminal trial system is a needless, self-inflected wound, neither required by the Constitution nor beneficial to the search for truth. …